Horror cat attack youth to face family

A LITTLE girl whose pet cat was ripped apart by dogs as a teenager filmed it on his mobile phone will confront him to ask: “why did you do this?” Four-year-old Jenny Farrow was devastated by the horrific attack on family pet Scully at her home in Middlesbrough.

A LITTLE girl whose pet cat was ripped apart by dogs as a teenager filmed it on his mobile phone will confront him to ask: “why did you do this?”

Four-year-old Jenny Farrow was devastated by the horrific attack on family pet Scully at her home in Middlesbrough.

The 11-year-old cat was in the family’s Linthorpe garden when the 17-year-old boy opened the gate and watched as his own dog and a stray savaged it to death.

Horrified neighbours, including a seven-year-old child, looked on as he filmed the attack on his mobile phone.

Jenny was in the kitchen with her sister Amy, then five, and her mum Jacqui Readman when a neighbour came to her door of their semi-detached home in Henley Road carrying Scully’s mutilated body.

The cat was rushed to the vet but died on the way.

A judge has ordered the youth, who admitted failing to prevent unnecessary suffering to an animal at Teesside Youth Court yesterday, to meet the devastated family as part of his sentence.

Speaking after the hearing, Miss Readman, a 42-year-old staff nurse, said she and her partner Paul Farrow, a 39-year-old police community support officer, will face him along with Jenny and Amy, now six, and their son Jack, 10. Their eldest daughter, 13-year-old Katy, has decided not to attend.

“I think it’s a fair verdict under the circumstances,” she said. “You just want him to see that he did this to these people.

“The most affected person from it all has been my youngest, Jenny.

“She still asks ‘where’s Scully and when are we going to get him back?’

“Jenny definitely wants to see who did this to her cat. I think that would be bad for him - seeing a small person, a little four-year-old, saying ‘why did you do this to my pussy cat?’”

At the hearing, Rachael Ramez, prosecuting, described how the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was walking his dog about 6pm on May 10.

Witnesses saw him open the family’s garden gate to allow his dog, a terrier, to attack the cat along with a stray, a Jack Russell. He walked away before returning moments later to film the incident on his mobile phone.

Rebecca Smith, mitigating, said the sixth form college student has no previous convictions and hopes to study mechanical engineering at university.

“His mum tells me he’s a good boy who keeps his room tidy,” she said.

District Judge Martin Walker said that if he had been an adult when he committed the offence he would probably go to jail.

“To not only open the gate then not only to watch but to film it quite frankly beggars belief,” he said.

But he said the boy’s previous good character had spared him prison.

The teenager will meet the family and the Youth Offending Team as part of the 12-month referral order the judge imposed. He has also been given a five-year ban on keeping animals and has been ordered to pay #200 compensation to the family and #50 towards costs.

Defendants in the youth courts have automatic anonymity, though the court can lift this if it is in the public interest.

The Gazette made an application to have the reporting restrictions lifted, but this was rejected.